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49 free Queer as Folk trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Queer as Folk was three shows. Russell T Davies's 1999 Channel 4 original followed Stuart, Vince and Nathan around Manchester's Canal Street for eight episodes and a two-part sequel, and got a brewery to pull its sponsorship along the way. The Showtime and Showcase remake ran five seasons from 2000 to 2005 with Brian, Justin, Michael, Emmett and Ted on a Pittsburgh Liberty Avenue that was actually Toronto. And in 2022 Peacock relocated the whole idea to New Orleans for a single season. This quiz covers all three: who played whom (and who turned the lead down), what the title actually means and what it was nearly called, the Jeep through the showroom window, the comic book Michael and Justin created, the club, the diner, the nickname, the theme songs, the finale bomb and the song Brian dances to in the last scene, plus the reboot's cast and why it was set where it was. It starts with questions any viewer can get and works up to details only devoted fans will remember. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the three series, their soundtracks and their creators and cast, and each question quotes its source.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The original 1999 Queer as Folk was set and filmed in which English city?
Manchester
Manchester's gay village around Canal Street was both setting and location; the series was made by a Manchester-based production company and first aired in February 1999.
Q 02Who wrote the original British Queer as Folk?
Russell T Davies
Russell T Davies wrote every episode of the 1999 series; he went on to revive Doctor Who in 2005 and to write the AIDS-era drama It's a Sin in 2021.
Q 03What is the name of Stuart's baby son, born in the first episode?
Alfred
Alfred is born in the first episode to Stuart's lesbian friend Romey Sullivan, who asked him to father her child; Stuart takes Nathan along to the hospital.
Q 04Which British broadcaster aired the original series?
Channel 4
Channel 4 aired the series from 23 February 1999; the writer then fell out with the channel over a shelved spin-off and did not work with it again until Cucumber, sixteen years later.
Q 05Who played the sexually voracious advertising executive Stuart Alan Jones in the UK series?
Aidan Gillen
Aidan Gillen earned a BAFTA Best Actor nomination for Stuart and later played Tommy Carcetti in The Wire and Littlefinger in Game of Thrones.
Q 06Which actor, the writer's first choice for Stuart, declined over his age and suggested a friend?
Christopher Eccleston
He would later be the first Doctor when Doctor Who returned in 2005.
Q 07Vince Tyler, Stuart's long-suffering best friend with a crush on him, was played by whom?
Craig Kelly
Craig Kelly plays Vince Tyler, the Doctor Who-obsessed supermarket manager who has loved Stuart since their schooldays; Vince's mother Hazel is played by Denise Black.
Q 08How old is Charlie Hunnam's schoolboy character Nathan Maloney supposed to be?
15
Nathan is 15, a schoolboy, while Charlie Hunnam was 18 when he filmed the role; the opening episode's sex scene between Nathan and Stuart drew complaints to the Broadcasting Standards Commission.
Q 09How many episodes did the first British series run for?
Eight
Eight episodes made up the first series, beginning on 23 February 1999; a two-part sequel, Queer as Folk 2, closed the story in February 2000.
Q 10Which firm, then owned by the writer's friend Nicola Shindler, made the UK series?
Red Production Company
Red Production Company, founded by Nicola Shindler in 1998, made the series as its first production; StudioCanal later bought the company.
Q 11After a car salesman makes homophobic remarks during a test drive, Stuart does what with the Jeep?
Drives it through the showroom window
Drives it through the showroom window — that is what Stuart does with the Jeep, smashing the dealership's glass frontage rather than swallow the salesman's remarks; later he also blows up Alexander's mother's car.
Q 12Which brewery sponsored the first four episodes and then pulled out halfway through the run?
Beck's
Beck's, the German lager brand, withdrew its sponsorship partway through the first series amid the controversy over the opening episodes' sex scenes.
Q 13Which composer wrote the UK theme and won an RTS craft award for the score?
Q 21Which writing duo developed and ran the American version?
Ron Cowen and Daniel Lipman
Ron Cowen and Daniel Lipman, the partners who had written the 1985 AIDS drama An Early Frost, developed the American series and ran it for all five seasons.
Q 22Who directed the pilot of the American series?
Russell Mulcahy
Russell Mulcahy, the Australian director of Highlander and of Duran Duran's early music videos, directed the American pilot, which premiered on 3 December 2000.
Q 23Who played Brian Kinney, the American counterpart of Stuart?
Gale Harold
Murray Gold
Murray Gold composed the UK series' music; he later scored the revived Doctor Who from 2005 to 2017, writing its new arrangements of the theme.
Q 14The soundtrack album to the first UK series sold about how many copies?
125,000
It ended up the 50th biggest-selling compilation of 1999 and features OT Quartet, Ultra Nate and Blondie.
Q 15Antony Cotton, who played Alexander Perry, went on to play a gay character in which soap?
Coronation Street
Antony Cotton joined Coronation Street in 2003 as gay character Sean Tully, a knicker-factory machinist and Rovers Return barman.
Q 16The 2000 sequel Queer as Folk 2 was driven by which family event?
Vince's half-sister's wedding
It ends with Stuart and Vince leaving for another gay scene in a pastiche of Grease, with Nathan inheriting the scene.
Q 17In 2010, where did The Guardian rank Queer as Folk in its list of the 50 greatest TV dramas of all time?
13th
On release the gay press criticised it for ignoring AIDS; the writer said he refused to let gay lives be defined by the disease.
Q 18The writer says he wrote Queer as Folk to what kind of music, for its 'sheer clubland drive'?
Hi-NRG
He wrote Doctor Who to action-film scores and Bob & Rose to Moby's album Play.
Q 19The American remake was set in Pittsburgh but mostly filmed in which city?
Toronto
Toronto stood in for Pittsburgh for all five seasons; the Liberty Avenue scenes were shot around the city's Church and Wellesley gay village.
Q 20The American series was co-produced by Showcase in Canada and which US cable network?
Showtime
Showtime aired the American series from December 2000 to 2005, where it became the network's highest-rated show, with a large straight female audience.
Gale Harold played the advertising executive Brian Kinney through all five seasons; he later appeared as Jackson Braddock in Desperate Housewives.
Q 24What nickname does Debbie give Randy Harrison's character Justin Taylor for his bright smile?
Sunshine
Debbie calls Justin Sunshine because of his bright smile; Justin is 17 when he meets Brian and is bashed with a baseball bat at his prom at the end of season one.
Q 25Michael Novotny, played by Hal Sparks, is obsessed with which fictional comic-book hero?
Captain Astro
Captain Astro is the comic-book hero Michael has idolised since boyhood; he later opens his own comic shop and co-creates a comic of his own with Justin.
Q 26What is the name of Michael and Justin's season-two comic book about a Brian-like superhero?
Rage
Rage, subtitled Gay Crusader, is drawn by Justin and written by Michael; Justin appears in it as JT, the hero's lover, and Michael as Zephyr.
Q 27Peter Paige's flamboyant Emmett Honeycutt originally hails from which state?
Mississippi
Emmett comes from Hazlehurst, Mississippi, a small-town upbringing he often invokes; over five seasons he works at the Torso boutique, as a naked maid and as a party planner.
Q 28Ted Schmidt, played by Scott Lowell, works in what profession?
Accountant
Accountant is Ted's profession; the mild-mannered number-cruncher later runs an online porn business that lands him in legal trouble, then works for Brian's agency.
Q 29Where does Sharon Gless's character Debbie Novotny, Michael's mother, work?
Liberty Diner
Debbie waits tables at the Liberty Diner on Liberty Avenue, wearing slogan T-shirts; a PFLAG stalwart, she takes Justin in when he leaves home.
Q 30Ben Bruckner, Michael's long-term partner from season two onward, has what job?
College professor
Ben is a College professor, teaching gay studies at Carnegie Mellon; he is HIV-positive, which is why Debbie at first opposes the relationship, and he marries Michael in Canada in season four.